Last week I got a new mount for the TAL 200K. Problem with the old mount was, that with high magnifications of more than 200x focussing became more difficult (much too wobbly). The EQ6 can take the 11-kilo TAL OTA easily. It can carry up to 22kg. The first lunar

On monday may 24th I shot some images from the Moon with the TAL 200K, a 10mm Lanthanum eyepiece (200x) and the Baader IR/IV Blocking filter combined with the Baader Contrast Booster. Here are the first results.

25mm Vixen Lanthanum ( 80x ) with a Baader contrast booster and a Baader IR/UV blocking filter attached to it. The images where shot with the Nikon Coolpix 4500 at maximum resolution (2272 x 1704). Both images are stacked out of 5, using Keith’s Image Stacker. On both images I used unsharp masking.

The first image is an overview image of the Sun (Exp. 1/250s, f 3.0, ISO 100)

The second image shows the sunspots more detailed (25mm eyepiece, but with 4x optical zoom from the Nikon Coolpix (Exp. 1/60, f 5.1, ISO 100).

On May 18th and 19th I took some images of Venus in the western evening sky. Venus is still very bright with a magnitude of -4.0. Through my big binoculars it looked like a small crescent moon. At the moment about 1/10 of the surface is lit by the Sun. Looking through the telescope I realized how big the diameter is at the moment (49.1"). Here are some images I took during .......follow this link to read the full report

I just added a detailed lunar observing report with digital images to my site. The report is of an 8-day-old moon and covers some interesting features like the Alps, Caucasus, Apennines, Ptolomaeus, Alphonsus, Arzachel and Rupes Recta. You can read the full report by following this link.

Tonight I observed together with Leo, a fellow observer who lives just down the road. We used the my Vixen 15 x 80 binoculars mounted on the Sky Window and his 8-inch f/4 Vixen R 2200SS newtonian mounted on an equatorial mount from Lichtenknecker Optics. We started our session around 20.30 hrs UT and ended at 23.30 hrs UT.

1. NEAT C/2001 Q4

I started with comet NEAT C/2001 Q4. At 20.45 I centred the big binoculars

on M 44. I was not really dark yet, but I could already see many chains, triangles and pairs of stars. The sky seemed to be very transparent. A little more than 4 degrees to the north of M 44 I found Q4. The core looked like a globular cluster, bright at the centre and diffuse towards the edge. As you can see on the sketch below, Q4 was just east of four 9th / 10th magnitude stars.

The next day I checked the sketch with SkyTools2. The stars you see are:

With averted vision we could see a broad short tail of 0.5 to 0.75 degrees long, pointing into the eastern direction. The coma and the tail seemed to be “folded” around the bright core lake a blanket. After 30 minutes the comet disappeared behind some buildings.

2. The spectrum of Vega

Next on our list was testing my new spectroscope from Rainbow Optics on Vega in Lyra. We used the 8-inch Vixen and a 7mm Nikon eyepiece. We could see two clear absorption lines, one on the border of the green and blue part of the spectrum, and one further into the blue-violet part. The one on the green-blue border is the H-beta line. The other has not been verified yet. After observing the spectrum for a few minutes we also detected a dark line in the orange part of the spectrum. This first spectrum I have ever seen with my own eyes looked very interesting and promising. I will keep you updated.

3. T Lyrae, a really red (carbon) star

At 22.00 UT we had a look at T Lyrae, one of the reddest stars to observe. T Lyrae is an irregular variable carbon star, its magnitude ranging from 7.5 to 9.4. We centred the telescope on the area where T Lyrae should be, but didn’t recognize it at once. Only at higher magnifications the red color came out really good. You could see the red color at its best with a magnification of 200x. This star looks really red against a black sky. Be sure to put this one on your observing list!

4. Cygnus and some double stars

Around 22.30 UT I started to scan the constellation Cygnus with the big binoculars. The sky looked much darker than it usually does from our hometown (suburbs). We could see the seven stars in the little dipper, Eta UMi being the faintest with magnitude 4.95.

When I turned the sky window to the area around Gamma Cygni, I could see hundreds of stars in the 3.5-degree field of view. M 29 was very easy to detect, just 2 degrees south of Gamma. The star cloud between Gamma Cygnus and Albireo is one of my favourite objects for the big binoculars. It is stuffed with hundreds of stars of different magnitude and color. Albireo was clearly split with the 15x80 into a bright yellow and a faint white-blue component. Through the telescope the fainter star looked even more bluish.

Next on the list where Omicron 1 and 2, a pair of bright orange stars 1 degree wide. Omicron 1 also makes a beautiful visual triple with two other stars. One of the visual companions is bright blue and makes a great contrast with the orange colored Omicron 1. This is a fine object for binoculars, even for 7x50.

Last on my list was 61 Cygni. The two orange stars are only 29” apart, which is much closer than the two components of Albireo. However, they are separated much easier than Albireo because the two stars of 61 Cygni differ only 0.8 magnitude from each other.

In Canes Venatici, the hunting dogs, you can find a beautiful red star, Y Canum Venaticorum, or “La Superba”. Y CVn is a carbon star. Most of these class C stars are evolved cooling giants with a large abundance of carbon dust in their outer shells. The apparent red color of carbon stars is caused by the carbon molecules (Carbon Monoxyide, Cyanogen, etc) in the outside layers of........ follow this link to read the full story

Today I got the Baader Micro-Guide eyepiece. This eyepiece should enable me to measure position angles and separation of (double) stars, the diameter of lunar craters (you have to know the exact distance of the Moon), and

a few other interesting features for astrophotography and spectroscopy.

This multi-function eyepiece comes in two parts, the eyepiece itself and a battery illuminator with adjustable brightness control. The illuminator can be attached to the eyepiece. The first thing I will have to do is to determine the exact focal length of my telescope. Only then it will be possible to use the different scales which are etched into reticle. I will keep you updated about my results!